HORRENDOUS are so close to heavy metal divinity that they can practically taste its delicious, rotten nectar. After all, they did just grace the cover of Decibel.
Philly’s finest and filthiest death metal band is wrapping up a rip-roaring tour of the American Southwest in support of their upcoming new album. If 2018’s Idol represented the band pushing themselves to the limit, then Ontological Mysterium portrays them at the peak of their powers. Heck, the title track even landed on a Pitchfork playlist.
“Preterition Hymn” is of a different Satanic verse than the two previoussingles. It’s still plenty sinister, with hellacious vocals that sound like the band is being burned alive. But it’s more of a slow burn. The twin guitars wring out a tortured but deeply melodic riff that drips like sweet, sweet tears.
Here’s what the band has to say about their new single: “Preterition Hymn is a lament for the weary and the damned–those who, like in the myth of Tantalus, can glimpse the golden fruits of knowledge and divinity yet are kept perpetually just out of reach by the tides of misfortune and fate. It is a hymn of longing infused with the faintest hope that our misery is merely the cleansing ablution necessary to don the robe of flames, free at last.”
‘Ontological Mysterium’ will be released on August 18, 2023 by Season of Mist. Pre-save the album HERE. Pre-order it HERE.
Horrendous are on the cover of the September issue of Decibel magazine! Order a copy and get an exclusive limited edition The Silver flexi disc.
“After years of incredible support from Decibel Magazine, we are honored to make it to the cover of their next issue”, the band said on Instagram. “Eternal thanks to Albert Mudrian for always believing in our music, Mike Wohlberg for all of his artistic contributions to the band, and Scott Kinkade for capturing us masterfully, and everyone out there who has supported us.
This week, Horrendous are playing the final four shows of their Southwestern Mysterium tour.
07/17: Atascadero, CA @ Dark Nectar*
07/18: Sacramento, CA @ The Colony* [TICKETS]
07/19: Santa Rosa, CA @ Arlene Francis Center* [TICKETS]
07/20: Oakland, CA @ Thee Stork Club* [TICKETS]
* with special guests PENURY.
Tracklist:
1. The Blaze (02:00)
2. Chrysopoeia (The Archaeology of Dawn) (07:16)
3. Neon Leviathan (03:30)
4. Aurora Neoterica (01:56)
4. Preterition Hymn (03:58) [LISTEN]
5. Cult of Shaad’oah (05:24) [WATCH]
6. Exeg(en)esis, (03:38)
7. Ontological Mysterium (04:44) [WATCH]
8. The Death Knell Ringeth (05:20)
Total run time: 37:44
“Surprises always come up during writing — spontaneous ideas pull you into new territory and enable the realization of novel possibilities that previously were inaccessible.”
Such are the words from Horrendous drummer Jamie Knox when discussing the creation of the band’s fifth full-length, the highly anticipated ‘Ontological Mysterium’. Knox’s quote also encapsulates Horrendous’s approach to extreme metal. Since 2009, the band has capably tapped into the inaccessible by providing a fresh, unconventional take on death metal that harnesses technical brilliance with elaborate, mind-melding melodies, frothy, spewing vocals and labyrinthine song structures. This combination has made each Horrendous long play a clinic in the gratifyingly unorthodox. The trend continues on Ontological Mysterium.
The follow-up to 2018’s Idol was recorded, mixed and mastered at Subterranean Watchtower Studios in Virginia, which doubles as the homestead of guitarist/vocalist Damian Herring. While the band (completed by guitarist/vocalist Matt Knox and bassist Alex Kulick) finished much of the songwriting for Ontological Mysterium in 2019, its recording was delayed by the 2020 global pandemic and various life events. Horrendous eventually finished recording in early 2022 and mastered the album before the start of 2023.
The album upholds Horrendous’s position as one of the underground’s best outside-of-the-box extreme metal bands. Having long abandoned concern whether people would appreciate their “uniqueness,” Horrendous has embraced its role as a band willing to veer far from death metal conventions, intentionally stretching and breaking norms. To wit, the band primarily views its music as filtered through a death metal lens. This may be Horrendous’s defining trait: By not accepting parameters, nothing is off-limits.
